My Personal Backup Strategy

Backing up your files is very important, but how and how often you do it is a personal thing and depends on how important your files are and what your time is worth. I'm a home use and that's what I'll talk about. If you're in business, that's an entirely different situation and backup is extremely important, lest a data loss puts you out of business. Backup strategies have also changed dramatically since I first wrote about it. Leopard now includes Time Machine, but since I'm not using Leopard I'll not discuss it.

Two types of backup: System backup and data backup.

System backup: This means creating a bootable backup, a clone of your hard drive, on an external hard drive (or a second internal drive if you a Mac Pro). If your internal drive should go up in smoke, you can boot from the external drive and have all your stuff (as of the last backup). Replace your internal drive and clone the external system back onto it. Buy (or build) an external Firewire drive that is at least as large as your internal drive and Superduper software. You can also use the free (donationware) program Carbon Copy Cloner, but most prefer Superduper ($28). Since the System backup copies everything, or at least everything that's changed, it can take a while. I do a System backup about once every 2-4 weeks at it takes about 1/2 hour. It's my understanding that Time Machine does NOT create a bootable backup. Yes, if you have an Intel Mac you can make a bootable backup with a USB drive, but the folks at Superduper do not recommend it. It's slow, despite the USB hype. Firewire drives are not as common and cost a few dollars more , but it's worth it.

Data backup: This involves backing up your data files, the stuff you worked so hard to create. Since this changes frequently, a more frequent backup is in order. How often depends on how much time you are willing to spend to create changes you've made since the last backup. Your data files will be much smaller than your entire system so backups go fast. There are lots of backup programs but one that I've been using for a long time is Silverkeeper. It's from La Cie (they sell drives) and it's free. Unfortunately it hasn't been updated for Leopard -- but then you have Time Machine. Data backup is much easier if you keep all your data files together, such as in the Documents folder. You can occasionally back up data files to a CD/DVD or flash drive and put a copy in your safe deposit box. I'm lazy and do a data backup with Silverkeeper every week or so. It only take a few minutes. I use the backup mode that copies only changed or new files.